A Beautiful Mind

I've been working my way through a pile of DVDs left here by one of my sons, and finally reached the last one, A Beautiful Mind. I knew about the film, of course; knew it came garlanded with Oscars including a Best Actor for Russell Crowe, but was never tempted to go and see it when it came out.
I was more engrossed by the film than I imagined I would be, but, as with so many Ron Howard films, it's far too long, and ultimately soft-centred. I did, however, find it far more engrossing than I thought I would and was held right up to the end, though I did get impatient in the last half hour, and found myself silently mouthing 'Oh get on with it!'.
The main talking point is Russell Crowe, who is turning into one of our great character actors. It's as if he's saying, I can do anything - bring it on, whatever it is. And he can. He's been completely convincing in everything he's done, from his debut in the masterly LA Confidential, to his wonderful performance in Master & Commander, and, of course, Gladiator. There's much else, The Insider was another high point, and there haven't been many low points, maybe A Year in Provence but we'll draw a veil over that. Anyway, he puts in a creditable effort at capturing John Nash's weirdness. He was a mathematical genius, but this gift came with the burden of paranoid schizophrenia, from which he eventually made a miraculous recovery. Crowe successfullymanages to inhabit his world view and Howard successfully conveys this with his direction, so we don't realise that Paul Bettany, who play his friend and Ed Harris, who is an entirely plausible secret agent, are entirely imaginary. But his world-picture, and his mind, starts to unravel completely as he descends into madness. Crowe conveys this gradual descent and recovery perfectly but the audience realises only gradually that there's something wrong.
The film met with mixed reviews when it was released in spite of being clear Oscar-fodder. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian slated it (predictably), for being hopelessly at odds with John Nash's real-life persona which is classic Bradshaw. He always misses the point, criticising films for not being realistic. It does have obvious problems, though, and the period detail is hopelessly messy. The hair isn't right for a start - not short enough for the men, and the women's are too casual, not remotely recognisable as a 40s look. The actors try to reproduce the quick-fire snappy delivery of 40s films, but can't do it - they should all be sentenced to watch multiple episodes of Mad Men.
So, an ultimately unsatisfactory film - I felt cross for the missed opportunity. Nash's story is actually more interesting than the one Howard tells. He was a closeted homosexual for a start, and Crowe, good as he tried to be, couldn't ultimately convey Nash's fragility convincingly enough. Inother words, a classic Ron Howard film, soft-centred, and a cop-out,